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PORTIA;
OR
BY PASSIONS ROCKED
BY
THE DUCHESS
Author of "PHYLLIS," "AIRY, FAIRY LILLIAN," ETC
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
BUTLER BROTHERS
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.
PORTIA;
Or, "By Passions Rocked."
CHAPTER I.
"A child of our grandmother Eve, a female; or, for
thy more sweet understanding, a woman."--LOVE'S
LABORS LOST.
THE gates are thrown wide open, and the carriage rolls smoothly down the
long dark avenue, beneath the waving branches of the tall elms and the
copper beeches, through which the dying sun is flinging its parting
rays.
The horses, sniffing the air of home, fling up their heads and make
still greater haste, until presently, rounding the curve, they draw up
before the hall door.
It stands open, and on the high, stone steps that lead to it, a very
pretty girl looks down upon the carriage from under her palm, with a
face eager and expectant. When she has barely glanced at it, she says,
"Ah!" in a tone of deep satisfaction, and running down the steps and
over the gravel, turns the handle of the carriage door and looks
anxiously at its occupant.
"You have come," she says, cheerily. "I was _so_ afraid something might
have prevented you."
The person she addresses--a girl about two years older than herself,
says:
"Yes, I have come," in a tone slow and sweet, almost to languor.
"_So_ glad," says the pretty girl, with a smile that must be one of her
sweetest charms, it is so full of life and gaiety; "come out of this
dreadful old sarcophagus and upstairs with me; I have your tea in your
own room for you."
Miss Vibart, stepping out of the brougham, follows her hostess into the
house, through the grand old hall, and up the wide, oak staircase, into
a room huge and old-fashioned--but delicious and cozy, and comfortable
to the last degree.
Having cast one hasty glance round the apartment, Miss Vibart turns to
her young hostess--
"You are Dulcinea? isn't it?" she says, questioningly.
"Yes, I am Dulcinea as a rule--(may I be your maid, just for once--you
will be so much happier without your hat)--but I have so many other
names, that it takes me all my time to remember which one I really
belong to. Uncle Christopher calls me Baby! and Mark Gore, when he is
here, calls me Duchess, and Dicky Browne calls me Tom, and Roger calls
me--I really quite forget what it is Roger calls me," with a slight
shrug of her shoulders.
"Is Dicky Browne your _fiance_?" asks Miss Vibart, uncertainly; "I know
you are engaged to somebody; Auntie Maud told me that."
"Dicky Browne! Oh, no!" Then, with the gayest little laugh in the world,
"If you could only _see_ Dicky Browne! He couldn't, by any possibility,
be _anybody's fiance_! You mean Roger, I suppose." But, with a quick
frown and a touch of petulance, "Don't let us talk about _him_. He is
such a worry, and has been making himself so exceedingly unpleasant all
the morning!"
Miss Vibart stares, forgetting her usually very charming manners for the
moment, and then drops her heavily-fringed lids over her eyes.
"By-the-by," says Dulce, breaking in upon what threatens to be an
awkward pause, "how d'ye do? I don't believe I have said that yet." Her
whole tone and expression have changed as if by magic; the suggestion of
ill-temper is gone; the former vivacity re-asserts itself. She lays her
hands upon her visitor's shoulders with a light, caressing gesture, and
leans towards her. "I shall give you a little kiss for your welcome, my
dear cousin, if I may," she says, very prettily.
Portia Vibart, acknowledging her grace, tells herself this new cousin
will suit very well, and returns her soft embrace with some warmth. She
is feeling tired, used up, _ennuye_ to the last degree; even the two or
three weeks she has had in town have been too much for her, and she has
come down to her uncle's house nearly ready to confess to herself that
she is seriously ill. Here, in the stillness, in this great room, with
the elms swaying to and fro outside her windows, and the distant cawing
of the rooks in the branches high up out of sight, she feels rest, and
comfort, and a curious longing, that has a strange pleasure in it, to
stretch out her arms and sigh deeply and contentedly.
"Sit in this chair, and rest a little before thinking of taking off
anything else," says Dulce; "I shall pour out your tea."
She goes, with the quick undulating step that belongs to her, to a
small, round table, and makes a little fuss over the delicate fat little
cups that stand on the tray.
"You take sugar?" she asks, in a moment or two.
"No, thank you," says Portia, slowly; she is looking at her cousin
still, whose hair is as nearly red as it can be, without being exactly
so; it comes very, very close to it, but it is only the rude who have
ever called it so.
"But of course not," says Dulcinea. "One might know that by looking at
you. It isn't a good thing to take sugar in one's tea nowadays, is
it?--it almost touches on immorality;" she is standing with the
sugar-tongs poised in her right hand, and is glancing at Portia over her
shoulder. "_I_ take it, you know--any amount of it, and I have yet the
grace to be ashamed of myself afresh, at every new lump. Dicky Browne
likes it, too."
"Who _is_ Dicky Browne?" demands Portia, suddenly: if she is going to
live in this rather mixed household, she had better learn some
particulars about the inhabitants at once.
"Not know Dicky? it argues yourself unknown. He is our celebrity. He is
really immensely clever, about always doing the wrong thing, and indeed
is inestimable in most ways. He is your cousin, too, as much as he is
mine, which really," declares she airily, "isn't much. But he is such a
pet all through that we magnify the third-cousinship into a first. He
rides very straight and smokes the very prettiest cigarettes, and he is
_such_ a fool!"
Miss Vibart is amused. "What a very charming description," she says,
with the low laugh she allows herself; "he sounds like something I have
seen somewhere, and he certainly would be a treasure to Byron."
"Lord Byron?" asks Dulce, with lifted brows; "I don't myself think he
would show off much as a Conrad, or a Giaour, or a Lara."
"I rather fancy I was thinking of the man who writes plays," says Miss
Vibart, mildly. "Is he here now?"
"Yes. He spends most of his time here. Both he and Roger are consumed
with a desire to see you. You must know," says Dulcinea, laughing over
her cups at her cousin, "that a breath from the outer world came to us,
whispering of your success in town, and how every one raves of your
_beaux yeux_, and your beauty generally."
"Who wafted so insane a breath as that?" asks Portia, with a suppressed
smile.
"Mark Gore. He puts in a good deal of his time here, too."
"Mark Gore never talks anything but the very utterest nonsense," says
Portia with a faint blush. "No one minds him. I shall be quite afraid to
go down-stairs to present myself to Dicky Browne after all you have
said. Consider his disappointment."
"I shan't," says Dulce, calmly, "and you needn't fear him. He is only
Dicky. Well, it is five now, and we dine at seven. I shall send your
maid to you, and I shall call back for you in an hour, if you wish, to
bring you down stairs with me. But, perhaps--"
"Oh! please do," says Portia, graciously. "I shall be just a little
strange at first, shan't I?"
"Strange here? _Indeed_ no," says Dulcinea, earnestly. "Nobody knows the
meaning of that word in this old Court. We all get friends with each
other at once, and I don't think we ever fall asunder again. Now at six
do try to be ready, and I will take you to see Uncle Christopher, who is
sure to be in just then."
"I shall be ready," says Portia, with determination.